If you've been following news of computing technologies, you've probably already noticed the presence of Thunderbolt technology. Now the maestros of motherboard manufacturing, ASRock is the world's first to add more of these wonderful Thunderbolt ports to the upcoming Intel 8 Series motherboards! What's more, the company's top-of-the-line Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard is the world's first Intel 8 Series motherboard to pass the Intel Thunderbolt certification.

These Thunderbolt ports will come on ASRock's Z87 Extreme9/ac, which are allegedly arriving to the market very soon, along with dozens of other exciting new features, such as ASRock's A-Style. So, if you're looking forward to build a solid next gen desktop rig with insanely fast data transfer abilities and innovative new software or hardware features, keep your eyes open for this bad boy.

Asrock has improved their mobo products in recent years and they now can be considered on par with Asus and Gigabyte as far as mobo performance is concerned, with the nod definitely going to Asrock tech support over both Asus (sic) and Gigabyte, (poor IME).

That being said, Thunderbolt is a technology looking for something to use it. It really is a solution for few people/devices so unless you have some real need for it, it's just marketing hype.

Am I the only person who thinks that it is interesting that the picture of that board has 10 SATA ports on it and that they're all the same color? Thunderbolt is cool, but if those are all SATA3 ports, that's pretty nifty and it's about time. Makes me wonder how many of them are off the PCH and what controller they're using for the rest.

Am I the only person who thinks that it is interesting that the picture of that board has 10 SATA ports on it and that they're all the same color? Thunderbolt is cool, but if those are all SATA3 ports, that's pretty nifty and it's about time. Makes me wonder how many of them are off the PCH and what controller they're using for the rest.

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And this is not the Extreme11 which will probably have an LSI controller onboard.

Let's hope they get the memo and make Raid5 possible, the only reason I didn't pick up an X79 E11 is the lack of Raid5.

Let's hope they get the memo and make Raid5 possible, the only reason I didn't pick up an X79 E11 is the lack of Raid5.

Oh and also retarded latency given by PLX chips.

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+1: There is no reason to have a PLX chip on a X79 board IMHO. Also the lack of RAID-5 was the biggest turn off with the board. I already had my board when it came out so I wouldn't have swapped, but it definitely was a turn off.

5ghz is not something every sandy can do. 4.5ghz is something nearly every sandy can do with ease. I can at max get 4.6ghz but no higher. 5ghz or maybe more with a small bit of an ipc improvement combined is what might make me upgrade, but not till I read many many reviews. I desire more single threaded performance. In the end I may not upgrade and live happy with sandy.

5ghz is not something every sandy can do. 4.5ghz is something nearly every sandy can do with ease. I can at max get 4.6ghz but no higher. 5ghz or maybe more with a small bit of an ipc improvement combined is what might make me upgrade, but not till I read many many reviews. I desire more single threaded performance. In the end I may not upgrade and live happy with sandy.

Can do, and does consistently are two very different things. That is his point.

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That depends on the board and the CPU. Where my 3820 might not go above 4.94Ghz at the highest, there are a lot of boards (in particular, ROG boards,) that will let it get much closer to 5.4Ghz, so with a good board a 5Ghz overclock with a 2600k shouldn't be unreasonable. 5Ghz for a 2700k should be a walk in the park though, assuming your motherboard can handle it.

That depends on the board and the CPU. Where my 3820 might not go above 4.94Ghz at the highest, there are a lot of boards (in particular, ROG boards,) that will let it get much closer to 5.4Ghz, so with a good board a 5Ghz overclock with a 2600k shouldn't be unreasonable. 5Ghz for a 2700k should be a walk in the park though, assuming your motherboard can handle it.